Before you start anything, priority #1 has to be clearly defining your objectives. This will help you and your teams accomplish several things. First, everyone should be able to clearly communicate and agree upon the objectives set. This will help prevent conflicting priorities as well as help you engage your stakeholders as you will need them to help drive success. Second, keeping the objectives simple but achievable will allow you to execute and make progress. It is that progress that will help you with the third item and that is securing executive support. All three will be important as you start transforming the way you communicate and collaborate with your customers and employees.

This is the third company I have had the opportunity to drive this type of initiative and while each need is a bit different you can easily get started with the three items below.

Modernize Your Customer Platform

Do you have a platform that your customers can easily engage? And no, email and survey’s aren’t one of those platforms. Customers need the ability to provide feedback as well as share inquiries and knowledge with each other. This typically isn’t done through your website which are often one dimensional and while social provides some of the capability it isn’t often tied together to provide a complete customer experience. A good place to start is evaluating all the ways in which your customers can current engage and pulling together a strategy that will unify your customers search interest, support interest and product feedback.

Transform Traditional Customer Engagement

If you are like me I delete more email than I read. So, take a look at all your current engagement program s and determine if they are effective and really providing your customers the experience they expect. Considering most of us live and die via our mobile experience, do you have the ability to engage your customers where they expect you to have a presence? One place to start is to look at your traditional engagement, email, phone, webcasts and see how to transform into a more virtual and digital experience. Some of this will be achieved via transparent communication and publishing content that is easily discoverable. Why pull together a webcast that is email invite only when you can make it open to all at a time that is convenient for them to view. Granted I do realize the importance of lead generation and measuring touch point but times are changing and consumers expect to be able to find anything and everything online without filling out a registration form. Ultimately, this will be the first step that will lead to building an advocacy program.

Customer Advocacy and Share of Voice

Another transformation is adopting a new way to engage your customers and treat them similar to they way you engage your market analysts. I think you will find that most of your advocate customers are under the same NDA that your analysts have signed so why not share the same information. This will help establish a level of trust with your advocates and provide them the opportunity to be thought leaders in their own professional career. As good as we are at selling and marketing most consumers don’t want to talk to us. They want to talk with other customers, share experience and come to their own purchasing decision. So, why not embrace this and help support that decision process journey by empowering those we respect the most with the information they seek. This will help identify those who should be considered advocates and allow you to frame a program for engagement around these individuals and help contribute to their success. Advocacy is as much about your customers as it is about your brand. And with a measured balance both can be achieved to create an authentic share of voice that will rattle your competition.